On Admissions: We Laugh Almost Every Time We Read the Pert Plus Shampoo Bottle Copy, Even When We’re Sick or Hungover

14Nov08

In which The Gay Recluse wonders who made this stuff up, and not without appreciation.

“I like your style” is kinda funny, but the back of the bottle is where things get good.

“Wow. That’s some great looking hair you have.”

Did you lol? We did.

For some reason it never ceases to amuse us. We imagine saying these 8.5 words to random people everywhere: on the street, the subway, to co-workers, our supervisors, people we genuinely like and those we genuinely hate. “Wow. That’s some great looking hair you have.”

On one hand, it’s hard not to imagine a 1970s guy in a wide collar oozing up to the Farrah Fawcett receptionist and delivering the line with a knowing nod, but the lack of exclamation points — the comic gold! — causes us to straddle a line between post-modern ironic absurdity and genuine wonder at the incredible quality of the hair we are observing. There is even a sense of relief that we are not beholding anything less than the transcendent, e.g. “Wow. Obama really did it.” We digest this for a few seconds and then laugh, because it’s something we wanted so badly that we could barely bring ourselves to believe that we actually have it. But then it sinks in, and we laugh again.

Thanks, Pert Plus! We hate a lot of products — not to mention having some serious problems with capitalism in general — but you’re an exception. (And give that copywriter a raise.)

My first assignment as a junior copywriter at Y&R was to write box copy for jello, and it wasn’t much better. After you have stared at the product for an entire weekend straight you’d be suprised the wonderful converstations you have with it. It looks like this poor schulb decided his converstation with a pert bottle would make good copy!